OXFORD — There’s no halftime in stock car racing, but it was a tale of two halves on Sunday.

After a free-for-all among a half-dozen drivers at the front of the field prior to the midway point, Dave Farrington Jr. finally took over and dominated the final 75 laps of the Pro All Stars Series Honey Badger Bar & Grill 150 at Oxford Plains Speedway. The win was the sixth in the last nine Super Late Model races at the track for the Jay driver.

“I guess we’ve found our stride here, to say the least,” Farrington said. “Once we found what this car likes, we just maintain it and keep it the way it needs to be. The crew is the same group of guys, consistently, so they know each other and are familiar with the car and how we have to operate to be successful.

“It’s the complete total package, and we’ve got it working here.”

Johnny Clark of Hallowell finished second, while Parsonsfield’s Trevor Sanborn finished third after a caution flag with 32 laps remaining jumbled the running order in the top 10.

Waterboro’s Curtis Gerry, the 2019 track champion, and Berwick’s Joey Doiron, who led 17 of the first 46 laps, rounded out the top five.

Farrington started third in the 31-car field and waited patiently while Doiron and three-time Oxford 250 winner Travis Benjamin circled the track alongside one another for lap after lap over the first 73 circuits around the .375-mile oval.

Then, on the race’s fourth restart following a caution flag, Farrington finally made his move – driving around the outside of Benjamin to take over the top spot for the first time on Lap 74. Farrington never relinquished the lead.

“I was just chomping at the bit. I wanted to split the middle of them,” Farrington said. “Maybe it allowed you to preserve a little bit, but I was getting a little antsy and ready to go.”

Benjamin and Doiron appeared headed for podium finishes, but Joe Pastore spun in Turn 1 on Lap 132 to bring out the race’s final yellow flag. Saturday night Oxford weekly winner Nick Sweet, running fourth at the time, was caught up in Pastore’s spin. Benjamin, meanwhile, retired to the pits because of a mechanical failure during the ensuing caution period.

Doiron missed a shift on the restart and slipped back in the running order, opening the door for Clark and Sanborn.

“I knew we had a good car, but everyone in heat races is on fresh tires. You need some time to get into a rhythm,” said Sanborn, who had the fastest speed in Sunday’s final practice but struggled in his qualifying race and was forced to start 27th. “You just need time, and this doesn’t come into it for like 60 laps.”

The opening laps provided tremendous racing on the cool, early-spring Oxford track.

Clark went three-wide twice on a pair of early restarts to go from 13th to fourth, and Benjamin, Doiron, Sweet and Gerry all battled door-to-door throughout the first half of the race trying to establish attacking position in the top five.

“(Doiron and Benjamin), their tongues were hanging out. They were running as hard as they could,” Clark said. “They weren’t really holding me up, I was the same speed as them. But I could tell we were holding (Farrington) up. After a couple restarts everything cycles through, and you can see where everybody is at. He got better as the race went on.”

As good as the racing was prior to the crossed flags being displayed to the field on Lap 75, Farrington made it an afterthought through the final 75 laps.

The leader consistently turned lap times that were two- to three-tenths faster than anybody else in the top 10 as the laps waned.

“Maybe I should have backed down a little bit,” Farrington said. “It was just roll the center, be smooth, don’t spin the rear tires, don’t get all excited about everything. I’ve been preached consistency to ever since I was 7 years old racing go-karts. It’s all about consistency, hitting your mark lap after lap, and that will be the key.”

Scott McDaniel, Jeff White, Calvin Rose Jr., Ryan Robbins and Jake Johnson finished sixth through 10th.

In other racing Sunday, Jimmy Childs of Leeds moved into sole possession of 16th place on Oxford’s all-time win list with his 50th career victory. Childs narrowly edged defending series champion Cody LeBlond to win the 25-lap Northeast Mini Stock Tour feature.

In the 50-lap PASS Modified event, reigning champion Tyler King of Gray led every lap to secure the season-opening victory over A.J. Cates and rookie Garrett Lamb.

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